Kia Motors Corp. will begin selling new vehicles through EBay Inc. as South Korea’s second-largest automaker looks to increase brand recognition in the U.S. with the help of the second-most visited e-commerce site.
More than 300 of Kia’s 725 U.S. dealers are enrolled to list their inventory on EBay and kia.ebay.com, said Tom Loveless, Kia’s vice president of U.S. sales. EBay is pushing to expand sales of new vehicles, parts and services, which make up a smaller portion of revenue than used cars and trucks, said Nicolas Franchet, EBay Motors’ director of U.S. vehicles.
Kia, based in Seoul, will finish the year with its best market share since entering the U.S. in 1994, Franchet said. The automaker introduced seven new vehicles in the past 18 months, including the Soul hatchback and Sorento sport-utility vehicle.
EBay’s arrangement with Kia is similar to its new-vehicle promotion in California with General Motors Co. last year, which the automaker let expire after about eight weeks.
Kia’s Loveless and EBay’s Franchet declined to give financial details of the arrangement. EBay, based in San Jose, California, has deals with about half of the auto manufacturers in the U.S. for listing used vehicles, Franchet said.
“This exposes our brand to a percentage of the car-buying public that perhaps wouldn’t otherwise have considered us,” Loveless told Bloomberg in a telephone interview.
